From Cordoba we took a 20 hour bus to Peurto Iguazu, base for the Iguazu waterfalls - one of the big natural specticals of Argentina. A wander of the streets and we check into a hostel and make plans for visiting the falls. Here you have the choice, you can visit the Argentinain side, take a half day out and visit the Brazilian side or take a full day out and go to Paraguy to see the view from there. You speak to the Argentinians and they are adament thier side is the best and most important - who are we to argue so we arrange to go the Argentinian side first.The falls are now in a protected park and it was our first excperience of a pricing structure we had only read about so far - for locals it is free, for Argentinians it is $20 and for foriegners it is $60!We were told you could easily spend 6-7 hours in the park, meandering along some of the trails in the jungle, riding the little train to the various view points, taking a speedboat to the base of some of the falls and generally being impressed by the size of the falls - its true, we spent pretty much the entire day there and it flew by

. First off we headed to the base of the falls and (when Ali saw there was warm sunshine) decided to get on a speed boat and be dunked under two of the big falls. When we say we were dunked, thats exactly what happened, they drove the boat into the plunge pool and we got a complete soaking! We couldnt see a thing with all the spray but it was such a good laugh! Dripping from everywhere we headed across part of the river to a little island to dry off in the sun. Jon stripped to his pants (as did most people) and dried himself on a rock, Ali chose modesty and drip dried!The falls are split into two main sections - one a series of 5-6 large falls spilling over a lake bed edge and the second is a colosal horse shoe shaped fall plunging so deep you cant see the bottom with all the spray (named the Devils Throat). We spent our time looking at them all, walking many of the paths and taking the little train to the park edge view points. Also, being a rainforest we were on animal spotting duty... Unfortunately Ali doesnt seem to have inherited the Beavis luck for animal appearences. Although what we did see included many brightly coloured birds, lots of butterflies, a small tapier, many coatis raiding the bins and a funny guinie pig looking thing! As the evening drew in we headed for home and a traditional Argentine bbq (Ali wasnt too keen on the blood sausages, but with half a chicken each, about 3kg of steak each and a magnum of wine to share, you cant complain!)

.The following day we planned to visit Brasil for the day and their view of the falls, and why not? Only thing, being a rainforest it tends to rain... and it did, alot. The point of going to Brasil, apart from the kick of it, is because they have a better panoramic view of the falls, but in pouring rain you cant see the panorama. Reluctantly we abandoned the idea, so here we sit writing our blog.As it happens, we needed to get some more cash to go to Brasil and all the ATMs here are not working and being a Sunday everywhere else is closed. We did get given a lift around town by a local who simply wanted to help (we think he thought we had no money for food or anything so felt a surge of compassion). Speaking rapid fire Spanish he cruised the town looking for ATMs to no avail, but we thanked him anyway! Now we have to wait for our bus to Buenos Aires, lets hope the rain doesnt follow us!p.s. Ali would like to point out to Nat that you can buy a litre bottle of Bud here for just over 1 pound! Brilliant!